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Thanx

Already started reading up on it.

I'm new to this forum, been looking for a place to identify all the wonderfull things out there.

Here's another one - taken last week at Sabi Sands

Hope someone can help

NiQ

Hi NiQ
Looks like Tropical Tent Spider (Cytophora citricola) eggs that have "fallen over" out of a destroyed web. A very obscure but interesting photo!

The eggs would have been strung up vertically in the centre of the web. I can see that the web has been broken, plus it's in a Ziziphus mucronata (Buffalo thorn) a favourite for these spiders. The web has been destroyed by something and the eggs have been displaced or wrapped around a thin branch.

Some information of these spiders...

Lifestyle Web bound spiders that never leave their web.

Description 8mm to 20mm in length. Abdomen is longer than it is wide. Colour varies from light grey to black. Often have white markings.

Distribution Found throughout the subregion except arid areas. Widespread throughout the world.

Webs Web bound often found in communal clumps of webs. Make their webs in low vegetation, particularly aloes, cycads and other spiky plants and trees. The mesh in their webs are a distinctly diamond shaped just like a fishing net. A tent like sheet can be found in the center of their web. This tent like sheet is constructed using numerous supporting lines. The center of the sheet is pulled up to form a tent.

The spider rests underneath the sheet and waits for prey. Prey falls hits the knock down threads, falls onto the sheet (tent) and the spider pulls the prey through the web and delivers a bite.

Venom This timid spider is harmless to humans.

Notes Juveniles often occur in groups. Many individuals may be found sharing a suitable plant or clump of plants. These spiders live side by side with each other but not communal in the true sense of the word. This aggregating together is thought to increase the amount of prey caught. These aggregations of webs provide a suitable place for kleptoparasites.

Egg sacs are flat on one side and rounded on another (just like a small slightly elongated tennis ball that has been cut in half). These egg sacs are deposited above the center of the sheet in amoungst the supporting threads. Egg sacs may be disguised using prey remains.

When threatened these spiders vibrate the web to blur their outline. One of the few spiders youcan identify down to species level. This is because there is only one species in Southern Africa!

In July on way from Lower Sabie to Crocodile River we saw hundreds of insect nests in the bush, covered in early morning dew and glistening in the sunlight,

The form resembled inverted parachutes or jelly fish but the thread was very fine making up thousands of beautiful conjoined small diamond forms in the central part which seemed to contain a single brown seed of a plant or possibly a pupa.

I saw no caterpillars or spiders

Can any on identify this nest please

You probably saw the webs of the Tropical Tent-web spider (Cyrtophora citricola), but there are other spiders who make similar nests. They are quite common in KNP, and especially obvious in the early mornings after dew.

As you mentioned the web resembles an inverted parachute. The bottom part has the function of catching the insects, which falls in to it after being knocked down by the strands going upwards. The insect is then attacked by the spider and dragged down below the web to be devoured.

The structure you refer to in the center is not a seed or a pupae, but rather the collection of the bodies of previous victims. It is also where the spider hide and keeps its eggs, so that you and other potential threats, would not easily spot it.

Thank you for the rapid reply and interesting information.